


beware your heart/but count the cost

by Riverdaughter



Series: 101 other ways to fix or break the galaxy [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Anakin missed some of the fine print, But also it is, F/M, Gen, Human Disaster Anakin Skywalker, Imagine a universe that is worse than the Empire and the Empire won't look so bad, Kind of literally, Take a depressing idea and make it more depressing, That's Not How The Force Works, devil's bargain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-20
Updated: 2020-05-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:28:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24285121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Riverdaughter/pseuds/Riverdaughter
Summary: They had tried to hide, to fight and to flee when nothing else would do. Rex is still alive he thinks, somewhere far away hopefully. Ahsoka is dead, cut down protecting the Padme, Padme is gone too fighting to keep their children from Falling with her last breath...Desperate times call for desperate measures and Anakin has always been his best and his worse in his most desperate hours.
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano, Leia Organa & Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker, Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker
Series: 101 other ways to fix or break the galaxy [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1742038
Comments: 20
Kudos: 84





	beware your heart/but count the cost

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [To Return and Try Again](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12119934) by [jedipati](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jedipati/pseuds/jedipati). 



> So between the last episode of Clone Wars and the truly terrible idea of watching all the most depressing parts of ROTS...this happened.

The amount of destruction a pair of determined twins can wreak is unbelievable. Especially when they are as powerful as these twins are and as Dark as anything that Palpatine could dream of. Anakin isn’t sure how the world has come to this.

They had tried to hide, to fight and to flee when nothing else would do. Rex is still alive he thinks, somewhere far away hopefully. Ahsoka is dead, cut down protecting Padme, Padme is gone too fighting to keep their children from Falling with her last breath.

Obi-Wan died years ago in a desperate attempt to help their fledgling rebellion. Anakin is unfortunately alive, as he has been for the last twenty terrible years. The Clone Wars had been bad, this was far worse. Alderaan is gone, Chandrila is blown to bits, Ryloth is dead, Naboo is stardust, Tatooine of course is still around to taunt him. Pantora, Lothal, Kashyyyk and Felucia are wastelands, the galaxy has crumbled to nothing around him and it is his children that have done this.

Well, Palpatine who has done this, raised them Sith, defied the Rule of Two so that he might have two servants rather than the broken possibility who refused to join him. And Anakin’s fault too, for not protecting them from this terrible, terrible fate.

Axxila and Corellia share the fate of Naboo as Anakin, in desperation clings to the first scrap of the Force that he has managed to reach in last two decades. Of all the many things that Palpatine has done to him, being so cut off from his lifeforce had hurt the worst.

And with final sense of desperation and love and sacrifice he finds a way out. A Skywalker will fall but it doesn’t have to be his children.

He bargains and haggles as he was taught on Tatooine, the Clone Wars will happen, but they will only last three years rather than ten, _he trades away an arm._

The galaxy will still fall but not so far nor so fast, _what good are healthy lungs anyway, when weighed in the balance of an entire galaxy?_

Organa and Mothma and the rest will live long enough to make the rebellion a viable threat to Palpatine’s empire. W _ho needs a right leg when the matching arm has already been bartered away?_

The Death Star will have a flaw, whole systems need not be blown away on the whim of a tyrant, _does he dare complain that he will burn rather than Naboo?_

 _No arms are infinitely better than one_ for the assurance that Palpatine’s reign will end.

What does a burnt, armless husk of a man _need with only one leg_ when it ensures that the kind of havoc his children have spread in their time as Sith will never come to pass. Far better to have the kind of power that he carries sapped and diminished, trapped and contained.

How dare he complain _that his best friend will cut him down_ if Obi-Wan will live twenty years longer then he has here? That he will be able to see Anakin’s son reach his potential?

What does it matter that _he will be little better than leashed gundark_ , _that he will call Palpatine his master_ if his daughter will bring hope instead of hate and find her happiness with a smuggler rather than a prince?

He may _die a villain_ in this story, but Rex and Ahsoka will live on as heroes, _he can live or die in infamy_ if they will simply live.

How can he care that his _memories will be forever locked away even from himself_ , that no recollection of this past will ever be saved if Padme does not have to see her children destroy the galaxy, buried so deep that even death will not bring them back? That there was once a galaxy where _he_ was not the nightmare or the monster in the dark? That they can all hate him but never as much as he loathes himself, that he can save his children but not his own soul? _Beware your heart the Father had said,_ but his heart has always come at a terrible cost. This time he will pay it. He strikes the bargain and the galaxy is changed. 

And even in that world, he still finds his way back.

**Author's Note:**

> Partially inspired by a story I read but can't remember the name of where Palpatine loses the first time around and time-travels back, knowing that he needs to control Anakin to make his plans work...leading to the canon trilogies...we all know how that works out for him of course. (If anyone recognizes this story, let me know and I'll add it to my summery.)
> 
> Anyways, one of my biggest Star Wars fic pet-peeves is people assuming that if Anakin hadn't fallen, Padme would have lived and everything would have been perfect (don't get me wrong I love everyone lives stories), it just annoys me when people act like it a forgone conclusion when there is so much other stuff that could have gone wrong. 
> 
> So here's an attempt to play with an even worse Empire and Anakin making yet another devil's bargain. 
> 
> PS Irony is the best


End file.
